Re: I take objection to NASA's Mars plans!

Henk Boonsma wrote:
> NASA is thinking about future Mars missions (no date given) which will last
> up to 500 days on the surface of Mars.

Yes. This is due to the fact that in order to go to mars with
present day propulsion technology you are constrained to minimum energy
Hohmann transfer orbits. These orbits take years to traverse and
require the planets be properly aligned to work. So, you must wait on
Mars until Earth and Mars are aligned - the so called synodic period.


> That's way too risky in my opinion.

Its a requirement of the physics of the process and cannot be changed.
You speak as if it can be changed, it cannot, short of developing a
propulsion system that no one knows how to build. The fact we can do
it at all is an important thing to remember.

> Think back what happened to you and your closest family during the last 500
> days and almost surely there will have been some sort of medical
> contingency.

So? This doesn't mean you can't do it. It just means you have to send
a surgeon along.

> Now imagine being on a planet billions of miles away from Earth

Um, when you state a number you should really take care to be nearly
correct. Otherwise you look like an ass!

FYI: Mars is part of the inner solar system - in orbit around the sun,
just as Earth is. The Earth orbits 93 million miles from the sun and
Mars orbits something like 142 million miles from the sun iirc. So,
when the planets are on the same side of the sun they're something like
49 million miles apart and when they're opposite one another from sun
they're something like 235 million miles apart.

> with no chance of any significant medical care.

Well, that's just bull***. The two don't correlate. Yes, you can be
billions of miles from Earth - but that doesn't mean no significant
medical care.

I can tell you that many a Vietnam vet when hit by enemy fire felt
billions of miles from Earth - but when the Dust Off Huey arrived to
evacuate them to forward hospitals, they received significant medical
care.

http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/vietnam/dustoff/default.htm

We certainly can send surgeons, tools and supplies to provide medical
and dental care as needed to the crew of a mars expedition.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14649256&dopt=Citation


> This will almost surely
> translate into one or more fatallities on such a mission.

Nonsense.

> Even relatively
> minor medical problems could lead to a fatallity if no proper medical care
> is possible,

Utter bull***.

>`which will be the case on Mars.

Not really.

> And this is aside from the
> possible psychological problems which could arise from such a mission, which
> in themselves could be just as fatal.

You speak as if people never got together in small groups and mounted
expeditions lasting years. I would suggest you acquaint yourself with
history;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook

Cook circumnavigated the world from 1768 through 1771 - about the same
period of time it would take to carry out a Mars expedition.

> Any fatallity on a mission will result in the entire enterprise being dubbed
> a *failure* and most probably future missions will then be scrapped.

Bull***.

>
> I'd favor an Apollo-like approach with a manned flyby, then a mock
> landing/automated unmanned landing, then a 1 week manned surface mission and
> continueing on to long duration stays along the Mars Direct line.

This is not possible given the constraints of astrodynamics and today's
propulsion systems.

http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/rocket_sci/satellites/hohmann.html

as you can see this is distinctly different than a lunar transfer;

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/conghand/fig20d8.gif

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/conghand/append4.htm

> You could do a fly-by of ...

Look, you can do a fly-by of Mars on a Mars-free-return trajectory, but
it would be a two-year ordeal, and give you a few hours near Mars, and
fly out into the asteroid belt at apo-helion.

You could drop probes onto Mars' surface as you flyby, even control
them remotely as you fly by for a few weeks time.

But you're still on board for two years.

So, that's the point - do you spend two years aboard a spacecraft for a
few hours of remotely controlled systems - or spend four years aboard a
spacecraft for over a year on Mars' surface - you don't change much
with a flyby.

.

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